A tank-type toilet or WC generally comprises a tank provided with a valve system which, when operated, permits water to flow from the tank into the toilet bowl and discharge the contents thereof prior to establishing a new water level in the bowl. The tank is usually provided with a further valve which controls the filling of the tank to a predetermined level.
It has been proposed heretofore, as a sanitary aid or for esthetic purposes, to provide in the water, a cleaning agent, disinfectant, deodorant or colorant. The cleaning agent can be a detergent.
To reduce manual intervention to the greatest possible extent, it is advantageous to provide a dispenser which is capable of automatically adding such agents to the water.
Efforts at this have included products which are dispensed in a liquid or hard form in the tank and which are more or less rapidly consumed, substances which are suspended in the bowl and likewise rely upon poor solubility for long term effectiveness, and complex metering systems for measuring and delivering precise quantities of the agent to the water.
In this connection, it is known to provide a device which can be positioned, e.g. suspended, within the tank and which uses a siphon action to permit a limited quantity of water to come into contact with the stubstance to be distributed within the device as the tank is filled, and this quantity of water to be discharged from the device when the tank empties into the bowl to carry along the substance which was dispersed in this limited quantity of water.
The siphon action heretofore has required entry and discharge of water through an orifice which tended to become blocked by the substance where the latter was not fully dissolved. Furthermore, earlier devices for this purpose have been relatively complex, of expensive construction and thus not disposable or, if treated as disposable, were of relatively high cost.
Another disadvantage of these earlier devices was the limited versatility in the form in which the substances could be introduced into the device and dispersed in the water.